Collegiate Baseball Newspaper releases 2012 Preseason Top 40

The Collegiate Baseball Newspaper has released their 2012 Preseason Top 40 poll. Florida leads the poll with SEC rival coming second place. Rounding out the Top 5 is Stanford at 3, North Carolina at 4, and Texas at 5. You can check out the full poll below.

Brian Foley is the founder and Lead Editor of College Baseball Daily since its inception in 2005.He has covered two CWS, multiple NCAA Baseball Regionals, and other special events across the country. In addition to his duties with College Baseball Daily, he has covered games for Inside Lacrosse and been featured in USA Today, Wall Street Journal among other publications.He can be contacted by email at editor at collegebaseballdaily.com and followed on Twitter @BFoley82.

Texas at #5??? IMO, they shouldn’t be in the Top 15, given they lost their two elite weekend starters (Jungmann, Green), 3 of their top 4 hitters from a team that was extremely offensive-challenged to begin with, and three-quarters of the defensive infield. Yes, the still have quality pitching returning in Stafford, Milner, Knebel, Dicharry and Thornhill, but they no longer have the truly elite weekend starters they’ve had the past 3 – 4 seasons, and their offense could be pathetic. Furthermore, their infield defense is almost assuredly going to be the worst it’s been in years.

The infield all around is going to be weak especially with Etier gone now….I don’t get all the love for Augie all the time!

Southern Cal is a top 40 team? Come on!!!

Jimmy

Good list, with all or most of the large name teams and suspects … Oral Roberts is mentioned and recived votes ? hmmmm dont want to take anything away from them …., however , South Dakota State University ‘Jacks'(SDSU) beat them all season long … but i dont see SDSU posted or getting votes here – oversight i think. Mid level D 1 schools with a smaller populations dont generate much in the way of votes – even if they have a great team,some outstanding Bats, and great win record. big vs small market team i guess !? Kansas Jay hawks should have been mentioned too,and at least generated votes too, in the mid west. the top 10 list are indeed powerful teams. no issue here .

walthoward

What about Virginia Tech they should have a good team this year

luvtopitch37

Ditto on Virginia Tech—they should be good this year. Six of their guys made Top Prospect list from summer leagues. A very experienced pitching staff returns & hitting and defense should be solid.

Wonder why Coastal Carolina didn’t make the list. They’ve been very good for well over 5 years with 3 or more 50 wins seasons, almost beat South Carolina in the super regionals in 2010 despite not having their 2 best All-American pitchers and losing a third pitcher in the 1st inning in game one of that super regional. Last year the made it to the regionals but got knocked out after winning their opener.

They beat VT last year and College of Charleston. I know they didn’t have as great a year as the year before but they were consistently good which they have been for years. I guess its tough if you are not in the power conferences and CCU hasn’t gotten much respect despite being a great team the past 5+ years.